So Emotional

"So Emotional" is a song recorded by American singer Whitney Houston. It was released on October 12, 1987, by Arista Records, as the third single from her second studio album Whitney (1987). The song was written by Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly and produced by Narada Michael Walden. The song's musical composition was inspired by the Minneapolis sound productions of Prince.

Upon its release, the song received mixed reviews from music critics. Commercially, however, it was successful, peaking at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, where it became her sixth consecutive number one, breaking a record originally set by Elvis Presley two decades earlier as the solo artist with the most consecutive number-one singles in Billboard Hot 100 history and tying her with the Beatles and the Bee Gees for the most consecutive number one singles on the Hot 100 at the time.

A remixed version by Junior Vasquez and Shep Pettibone later sent the song to number one on the magazine's Dance Club Play chart, giving Houston her second number one dance hit. It was also successful on its R&B and adult contemporary charts, reaching the top ten in both. In doing so, it became Houston's third single to reach the top ten in four successive Billboard charts after "How Will I Know" and "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)".

It was the sixth best-charting song of 1988, and the fourth best-charting song on the club charts according to Billboard; it is her sixth biggest all-time hit on the Hot 100 chart.

It was also successful outside North America. In the UK, the song became Houston's fifth top ten hit, peaking at number 5. It would also reach the top ten in Canada, Finland and Ireland and would top the charts in Luxembourg while reaching the top 20 in Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands and South Africa and the top 40 in other countries such as Australia, Germany and France.

Considered one of her signature songs, it later received retrospective accolades by magazines such as Slant and Entertainment Weekly as well as the website About.com and the channels MTV and BET, all of whom ranked the song as one of Houston's best songs in her catalog.